Striking Evidence in a Trademark Opposition

Al Shurkah Alwataneya Lisenael Al-Alamenyom Walfrofilat – otherwise known as the National Aluminium & Profile Co. or NAPCO, filed Israel trademark No. 240139 for aluminium profiles. On it publishing for opposition purposes, Exstel filed an opposition. The mark in question is a simple line in a profile extrusion, whether an indentation or a protrusion.

NAPCO’s mark is shown here.

Exstel uses such indentations/protrusions at an angle of 120, and claims that their mark is very well known. The Exstel mark is reproduced below.

Unfortunately, Exstel’s mark had not been renewed and had thus lapsed, allegedly due to a clerical error.

Marking extrusions with one or more parallel indentations or protrusions is the only practical way to mark them. The single 120 indentation does seem to be rather similar.

Since the Exstel had been allowed to lapse, they have to claim that their mark is well known. It may be well known among building contractors, but it certainly is less well known than, say, the Adidas three striped mark.

Applicant argued that the Opponent was using the protruding mark, and not the indented mark. Both sides supplied evidence including various statements.

Applicant has requested that various statements should be deleted since they were submitted as responses to applicant’s statement but are, in fact, new evidence.

One such statement is that Exstel has been using both protrusions and indentations for years. Another related to the likelihood of confusion when purchasing profiles from a store that stocks both NAPCO and Exstel is NAPCO continued to mark their profiles with V indentations.

A third piece of evidence relates to a recording of a conversation with a stockist, that NAPCO wanted dismissed on grounds of it being heresay, also on grounds that the private investigators did not present this evidence which was slipped in as an appendix, and thus could not be cross-examined.

Opposer argued that all these statements relate to the issue of the mark being new and distinctive.

Finally, the file wrappers concerning the 240081 and 240082 marks to Sharmer were submitted as evidence only at the stage of responding to the applicant’s evidence, since they were unavailable earlier. (For details of these marks see here).

As far as the Affidavit’s went, the Deputy Commissioner accepted that a protrusion was better than an indentation since indentations created a point of weakness. The Deputy Commissioner was prepared to delete a statement in an expert opinion that a single store might carry profiles from more than one source, since this was beyond his expertise. Since the private investigators had been available for cross-examination, the Deputy Commissioner did not see reason to strike this evidence.

Ms Bracha could not see any reason to cancel the submission of the file wrappers of 240081 and 240082 marks to Sharmer. However, she didn’t think they provided much support to either side, and clearly the opposer could not be cross-examined on the accuracy of their content.

In summary, Ms Bracha struck the statement of Mr Sagi Sgian from the record and ordered 1000 shekels be paid to the applicant

COMMENT

There is always a conflict over whether to favour procedure or substance. The issue here should be whether or not the relevant public, i. e. builders and glazers, would be confused. I think that this is more significant than whether data is submitted in a timely fashion. Having allowed their mark to lapse certainly doesn’t help the opposer. If they do, however, widley use the same mark, i.e. an indentation, then there is a likelihood of confusion. If, for reasons of weakening profile, or other reasons, they only use protrusion, there is probably no likelihood of confusion.

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